Decisions for Desertion
by Balin Lord of Moria
Summary: What sort of domestic jobs do clone deserters do? Meet three clones who are a farmer, a miner, and a game hunter. Cut Lawquane is canon, the other two clones are OC's.
1. Cut Lawquane, Farmer

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Star Wars: The Clone Wars_. Dave Filoni and Disney do.

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><p><em><strong>Cut Lawquane, Farmer<strong>_

My name is Lawquane, Cut Lawquane, and I'm just a simple farmer. I am also a clone. I fought in the Battle of Geonosis, but my gunship crashed out on the dunes, and most of my team were dead or severely injured. Droids started to move through the rubble of the craft, and I knew there was no hope of saving my men, so I ran. It still haunts me.

It was the day I felt like my life had no meaning. I was just another expendable clone, waiting for my turn to be slaughtered in a war that made no sense to me.

But now I have found myself a new life, a life with meaning, and a life with something to look forward to besides a lifetime of war. I am a farmer on the planet Saleucami, in the wetlands. As a farmer, I grow crops and harvest them, and I raise farm animals such as nunas and eopies. The nunas make good roasts and sandwiches for lunch and dinner, as well as providing nutritious eggs, and the eopies provide meat, milk, and hides for my family, as well as serving as beasts of burden on the farm.

Best of all, though, like I said just now, I have a family, something almost all of my clone brothers don't have. Suu was a woman who was in need of a man in her life to help her raise her children after she lost her previous husband, and what else could I do but be gracious and loving to her? I like the fact that she can take care of herself, too, and isn't a damsel in distress when trouble comes to the farm. Our daughter, Shaeeah, and our son, Jek, are such sweet, cute young kids, and I know that they both adore me, even after I was revealed as a former clone trooper. Shaeeah seems to be especially close to me, because she said that she wants to learn how to fight when she grows up, so she can do something altruistic like the clones and the Jedi do.

After getting through to Captain Rex when he visited our farm, I think that there's some hope of more clones like me having minds of their own and deserting the army, choosing a life they want. And by the stars, I believe it's going to come true.


	2. Mix Raphael, Miner

_**Mix Raphael, Miner**_

My name is Raphael, Mix Raphael, and I'm a humble miner. I am also a former clone trooper. I fought in several battles in the Clone Wars, until the Battle of Hypori, when all the clone forces were totally destroyed. No one knew it, but of all the troops, I was the lone survivor. When the dreaded General Grievous went to kill the Jedi Generals that had survived the battle, I knew that I couldn't help them by myself, so I fled. It still gives me nightmares from time to time.

Watching the way Grievous decimated my men, and the way the Jedi unquestioningly left me for dead, that made me feel like the war was futile, that there was nothing good to be gotten out of it.

Fortunately, I have found myself a new way to live: to choose not to kill for a living. I have become a miner here on Mygeeto, and I work in the dark mines, where the air is surprisingly crisp, digging for gemstones, crystals, limestone, and rock salt for the various purposes the Mygeetians use their rich supply of jewelry and stones. It's dark work, of course, but I get paid handsomely for it, (in Mygeetian currency), and it's rewarding in that I have now been promoted to project manager of our operations. And I have the best-looking apron and hardhat a miner like me could have.

And while I don't exactly have a family, like Cut does, I do have a new wife, a human woman named Luce. She is very supportive of me, and I am very supportive of her in return. Luce has a nice, simple log house up in the mountains, only about twenty miles from the usual mining site, and we've made it a home. She's good both at earning a living, and as a homemaker, and our house is splendidly attractive to look at. And even though the war has found its way out here, we (hopefully) live far away from where the bulk of the fighting is taking place, and is going to take place. We live in relative peace for now, and I intend to keep it that way for as long as possible, so we can live lives of peace and harmony.

I hope some other clones can consider some hard-working jobs like mining, that require sweat and grime, but pay off well in terms of rewards.


	3. Hit Lawlaff, Game Hunter

_**Hit Lawlaff, Game Hunter**_

My name is Lawlaff, Hit Lawlaff, and I'm an intergalactic game hunter. I, too, was a clone in the Grand Army of the Republic, but I deserted after the Battle of Teth. I was a good friend of the more wound-up and uptight clone, Chopper, because we shared each other's knack for shooting our targets with deadly accuracy and crack marksmanship. But when he received a head injury and started to act extra weird, gunning down battle droids with a scary mixture of joy and rage, I was afraid I might end up like him, and, well, I abandoned the army on Teth during the mission to rescue Jabba the Hutt's son.

I didn't like just leaving my comrades, my brothers, but I was convinced that this war was a state of madness for all involved in it. It certainly had that effect on many of the Jedi as well, because a lot of them "fell to the dark side" as the war progressed.

But now, now I've found a whole new life, a new meaning to my existence. I have always loved the thrill of the hunt in battle, but my conscience tells me that it's amoral to be a bounty hunter, so I became a game hunter instead. I enjoy the challenge and excitement of matching wits with animals that are smart, fast, and well adapted to their environment. I also enjoy wielding hunter's rifles, obviously. So I hunt the animals of the galaxy, including the ones on my new home world, Tatooine. I know it's dangerous hunting on Tusken Raider territory but I'm a survivalist, and that makes the thrill even more exciting. I hunt anoobas, rontos, galoomps, and the occasional rancor, as well as some smaller game animals like nunas and profoggs. I also travel to other worlds sometimes, to hunt gutkurrs on Ryloth, tauntauns on Hoth, condor dragons on Endor, and go fishing on Naboo.

And I have my own family to share it all with. I have a Mirialan wife named Glimm, and we have two daughters I adopted, a teenager named Jana and a younger one named Hylo. Altogether, we're a hunting family, and sometimes Glimm and/or the girls come along with me. Of course, I'd be showing disrespect for the animals I kill if I just left them lying like carrion, so I've cooked most of them into good dinner meals for the family, and all of them hang on the walls of our wooden house in the form of heads, horns, or whole bodies.

This will make some very good memories for my family and I to have for the future. And I hope that more clones that try to desert realize that they can hunt for the wild creatures that I know and love instead of sentient beings, and not just for bounties.


End file.
